Adam Helliker

Whispers From The Top: The best informed, most entertaining diary you need to read

John Bercow: so petulant, pompous and profligate, says ADAM HELLIKER

The Speaker commissioned a portrait of himself for £37,000. He loves nothing more than a freebie to Wimbledon. And he spent £367 on a cab to lecture MPs on expenses.When will this absurd figure leave the stage?

WHENEVER there's a gathering of MPs, it's not long before one subject raises its weary head - just when will John Bercow do the decent thing and step down as Speaker? But Bercow, 55, is a stubborn creature who has already broken a promise he made to the Commons that he would retire after nine years in the post. And he will doubtless continue to dig his dainty heels in over the latest spat with MPs after allowing a controversial Brexit vote to go ahead, defying the advice of his own clerks and trampling over centuries of parliamentary procedure. Bercow's decision on the amendment tabled by Tory rebel Dominic Grieve gives the Prime Minister just three days to present a Plan B if she loses the "meaningful vote" on her deal next Tuesday.

Related articles

Amid febrile scenes at Westminster, Tories rounded on the Speaker, accusing him of anti-Brexit bias. One minister told him he was "degrading" his office, while prominent Brexiteer Crispin Blunt claimed there was now an "unshakeable conviction" among many that Bercow was no longer a neutral referee.

Not that the Speaker, who does not allow himself the indulgence of selfdoubt, has any regrets about his controversial ruling. "I am clear in my mind," he said, bouncing triumphantly on his green leather throne, "that I have taken the right course of action."

Behind the scenes, Bercow, whose father was a taxi driver in north London, is said to have "exploded" at clerk Sir David Natzler when advised that he should not allow the vote to proceed. That has echoes of previous alleged run-ins with his underlings. His former private secretary, Angus Sinclair, has claimed Bercow tried to physically intimidat REVEALING: Sally him by smashing a phone on his desk and he is also said to have bullied another secretary, Kate Emms. Bercow has always denied accusations that he shouted and swore at staff.

But it's not just staff who the belligerent Bercow, a former hardline right-winger, likes to demean. He even treated Andrea Leadsom, Leader of the Commons, to one of his unsavoury outbursts. Microphones in the chamber appeared to pick up him calling her "******* useless" and a "stupid woman" under his breath.

Indeed there seems to have rarely been a time when Bercow's narcissistic pomposity hasn't upset someone, somewhere. His vanity is legendary, as anyone who has witnessed his preening demeanour as he makes his morning procession to the Commons chamber can attest. Few were surprised to learn that he had commissioned a portrait of himself (at a cost to the taxpayer of £37,000) to hang in Speaker's House.

Speaker John Bercow speaks during Prime Minister's Questions in the House of Commons (Image: PA Wire)

Bercow in the Royal box at Wimbledon (Image: Karwai Tang/WireImage)

Then there's the matter of his expenses. He was accused of "obscene waste" when he racked up a bill of £172 for being chauffeur-driven to a conference just a 15-minute walk from Parliament. He also spent £367 on taking a car to Luton to address MPs on, ironically, the importance of restoring their reputation after the national expenses scandal.

Last year it was revealed that Bercow has received £70,000 worth of gifts and hospitality since taking office, including the very best tickets for watching his favourite sports: tennis and football.

But those close to Bercow whisper that it's not just in the Commons that the "Squeaker' (as he is nicknamed by his detractors) is under pressure. He is also feeling the heat at home where his willowy wife Sally is said to be "mightily challenged" by the constraints of her 16-year marriage.

ONE Westminster source says that the excitable Sally, 49, is "straining at the leash" but has given an assurance to her husband that she will stay by his side until he steps down. Eight years ago she famously and controversially posed naked except for a bedsheet for a magazine photograph in their home overlooking Big Ben. But the question for Sally - and for all those MPs who despise him - is just when will he go? He loves the pomp of being Speaker, the £152,500 salary, the firstclass travel and their opulent flat.

"Sally has been biding her time but won't hold on for much longer - she's like a panther in a cage," says one friend. "She's longing for an independent life. Her dilemma is that there are three children involved and she will always put their welfare first."

Sally has previous form when it comes to marital upset. Three years ago she walked out on her husband and moved into a house in Battersea which the couple had bought as an investment. It was then revealed that she was having an affair with her husband's cousin, solicitor Alan Bercow. She was also seen smooching with a musclebound DJ in a London club.

Sally, who embarrassed her husband further by appearing on Celebrity Big Brother in 2011 (she was the first to be evicted), declared that she hated living in the "goldfish bowl" of the Speaker's residence, adding: "I'm a terrible wife. I always have been. If I was John, I wouldn't put up with me."

She is also keen for him to quit so that she can publish her political thriller, which she has promised to be "a ****-take on Parliament". It will, says her friend, be "her revenge on all the pompous bigots she has encountered at Westminster". Known as Long Tall Sally (as she towers over her 5ft 5in hubby) her own antics would make a rumbustious book. She has been frank about the drunken one-night stands she had when she was single and has purred provocatively about the power of politics as an aphrodisiac.

Not that Bercow wasn't active on that front before he married Sally. In 2009 an article The John Bercow Guide To Understanding Women came to light. One section was headed "How to pick up drunk girls" and advises the use of crass chat-up lines, such as "If you're free later maybe we could go back to your place and name your breasts." Bercow said this was a comic article written when he was 23.

SO JUST how much longer can Bercow last? "Never underestimate him - he has the hide of a rhino," advises one MP who knows him well. While his former tutor at Essex University, Professor Anthony King, views him as "remarkably resilient." He was, recalls King, an outstanding student. but "very stroppy". No change there, then.